Health Care Reform

Why it matters

The U.S. health care system should provide a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost to all U.S. residents. Basic care includes disease prevention, primary care (including prenatal and reproductive health), acute long-term care, mental health care, as well as health promotion and education. Health care policy goals should include the equitable distribution of services and delivery of care, advancement of medical research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level.

What we're doing

Over the past 20 years, we have lobbied for health care policy solutions, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to control costs and ensure a basic level of care for all. Throughout the health care debates of the past few decades, Leagues worked to provide millions of Americans across the country with objective information about the health care system and its significant reforms. This included organizing community education projects, holding public forums and debates, creating and distributing resource materials, and engaging leading policy makers and analysts.

The League opposes the motion to proceed on the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which will eliminate affordable quality health care for 22 million Americans by gutting the Affordable Care Act and slashing funding for Medicaid. The League urges Senators to support the parliamentarian’s ruling excluding the defunding of Planned Parenthood from the reconciliation bill.

The League joined more than 340 organizations representing a range of demographic groups from more than 40 states in sending a letter to Congress urging members to support an inclusive paid family and medical leave policy and to reject alternatives that leave people behind.